Your rights

The Act is often shorter and clearer than the advice written about it, so this shelf quotes the Act.

Almost everything here comes from the gazetted text rather than a summary of it: the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, the Labour Relations Act, the Unemployment Insurance Act and its amendments, POPIA, and the Employment Services Act, which governs recruitment agencies. Where a section has changed, the article says when and what it replaced. Older guidance may still describe a version of the law that has since been replaced, so it helps to know which one a page is quoting. Where the Department's own documents disagree with each other, the article says so.

Start with how much notice you have to give in South Africa. It quotes section 37 of the BCEA as it reads after the 2002 amendment, explains the older rule you may still see quoted, and covers a sentence that is easy to miss: your contract may not ask more notice of you than it asks of your employer.

Then read what you can and cannot claim from the UIF. It starts with resignation. An ordinary resignation does not qualify. One subsection decides that, and the article quotes it, along with the exception for constructive dismissal. Then it does the sums on credits and the income replacement rate. The credit rule has changed twice, and a page that does not say which version it is quoting may be quoting one that no longer applies.

We write this shelf from the recruitment desk. We are not attorneys, and nothing on it is legal advice. Each article says so at its foot. Your contract, a bargaining council agreement or a sectoral determination may say something different in your case. For a decision that matters, the CCMA is free and deals with these disputes every day.